Rangers Find Order Amid Chaos Against Aberdeen
Rangers finally found something that has been missing all season: a bit of order amid the chaos.
It has been a grim opening to the campaign. Recruitment has dragged, the European exit was a humiliation, and Derek McInnes has spent weeks shuffling systems, line-ups and substitutions like a manager searching for a light switch in the dark. Nothing looked settled. Nothing looked convincing.
Against Aberdeen on Sunday, for the first time, his Rangers side resembled a coherent team.
They were solid. Functional. Hardly thrilling, but for a club in this state, competence is a start. They got over the line, and for once it felt less like an accident and more like a plan. Now the question is whether this becomes a foundation or just another one-off in a season already littered with false starts.
Two players, in particular, dragged the attack into something resembling life.
Kim Min-Su played as if he wanted the entire game to run through him. He demanded the ball, tried to knit play together and looked every inch the fulcrum this side has been crying out for. Alongside him, Djeidi Gassama brought energy and directness, constantly probing, always available, giving Aberdeen problems they never truly solved. In a forward line that has too often looked flat and disconnected, they stood out.
The rest? Workmanlike, steady, unspectacular. But after the shambles of recent weeks, “steady” is an upgrade.
The match also carried the inevitable storm around officiating, but on this occasion the referee left little room for serious complaint. Matthew MacDermid handled the big calls with authority. Kevin Nisbet’s disallowed goal has already sparked the usual noise online, but the decision itself was clear. There were two separate issues in the build-up: a shove on Dujon Sterling and an offside. Either one would have been enough. Combined, they made the ruling inevitable.
The real test now comes away from the brief calm of Sunday.
Rangers travel to Falkirk on Wednesday, and that game cannot be treated as an isolated cup tie or a routine midweek assignment. It has to be the next step in restoring some sense of identity and belief. The performance against Aberdeen must be something they build on, not another fleeting glimpse of what this team could be.
Off the pitch, the work is even more daunting.
The squad is short of the quality required and everyone inside the club knows it. A striker has been heavily linked and is badly needed. So is another right winger. On top of that, two midfielders must arrive if Rangers are to look anything like a balanced, competitive group over the course of a long season.
There is, bluntly, a lot to do and not much time left to do it.
Sunday brought comfort and solidity, but it also underlined the scale of the rebuild. The window is closing fast. If Rangers do not move decisively now, will this small step forward be remembered as a turning point – or as the calm before another storm?
